MS CLAKE IS DOING A PHD WITH LUKE KENNARD AT BIRMINGHAM UNIVERSITY, ON THE FEMINIST ABSURD IN AMERICAN AND BRITISH POETRY JENNA CLAKE I...

Friday, 24 June 2011

Greece Deserves Better

The news that British PM David Cameron has fought in Brussels to severely limit Britain's financial exposure to EU funding for the Greek bailout is not good. It is evidence of an historic betrayal. Since at least the time of Byron, Britain has understood the importance of Greece, as classical ideal, and as reality. Millions of British people travel to Greece every year, for holidays in the sun, welcomed by great hospitality, food, natural beauty, and ancient history of extraordinary worth. Modern Greece is not Athens in its golden age. But we owe the idea of Greece a debt worth far more than billions. We owe them our civilisation. It therefore seems sad and petty and ignoble to refuse to come to their rescue, when they need us most.